UUNET STRIDES AHEAD IN INTERNET MANAGEMENT SERVICES WITH TOTAL CUSTOMER LOYALTY SERVICE PACKAGES

UUNET, an MCI WorldCom company and a global leader in Internet management services for traditional and new providers, has introduced its UUDial VIP range of services. These are designed for any organisation that wants to offer individual customers a high quality, branded and specially customised Internet service at a competitive discount or as a free value-added service. All of the dedicated Internet infrastructure, support and billing, plus unique technical skills and expertise, is provided by UUNET, allowing the client to focus their energies on the innovative marketing opportunities possible with a branded Internet customer loyalty offering.

UUDial VIP extends UUNET's market leadership in reselling high quality Internet bandwidth and services. Currently, UUNET provides more connectivity to other Internet Service Providers than any other company in the UK with 40-plus ISPs and their 1.7 million customers reliant on UUNET. The company manages the networks and infrastructure of top Internet brands including America Online (AOL), MSN, Electronic Telegraph and BBC Online. A full service for new market entrants is also a natural development of UUNET's work with major brands ­ Clinique, Rough Guides ­ to realise significant sales and marketing opportunities via high quality Internet presence and access.

UUDial VIP meets the rapidly evolving market for creating strongly branded Internet services that help organisations retain high value customers through offering free or discounted e-mail and web access, space for personal websites and special content including online retail pages. It draws together the various elements of existing services to this sector.

The service portfolio is designed to make it easier for new market entrants to offer Internet-based services as part of their customer loyalty and acquisition strategies. Clients can select the service modules that best suit their market objectives to reach specific market segments. All of the technical and management issues including technical support and online registration associated with provisioning Internet access are provided by UUNET.

For large organisations wanting to offer selected customers free, high quality Internet access, the top of the range UUDial VIP service package is called UUDial VIP Gold. This takes advantage of the UUNET UK backbone network, which has more capacity for transferring and exchanging e-mail and other data over the Internet than any other similar backbone in Europe. As a result, a client can offer a free service with the high reliability and speed to match their core brand values.

Joe Clift, marketing director, UUNET said: "The bedrock of UUDial VIP ­ and all the wholesale services UUNET provides ­ is the quality of service benefits of linking customers to the Internet via the UUNET network. A client who is new to the market benefits from working with the real experts in making the Internet work as a powerful tool for communication and commerce. The advent of the virtual ISP is only just beginning with real numbers of online home users currently quite small. For real growth to take off, a partnership of our world class Internet service with more world class brands on innovative customer marketing initiatives that deliver real value will be key".

"The key driver for users to go online is to benefit from the variety of products, services and facilities available on the web sites of our corporate customers. These major multi-national enterprises are re-modeling their business to take account of the globalisation that the Internet is driving. The link between the quality of service they want to offer and the infrastructure across which it is delivered makes it inevitable that will seek the highests quality of service available. That is what UUDial VIP is able to deliver," he added.

Within the UUDial VIP service range, UUNET provides a client with a dial-up access network infrastructure that connects their customers to the Internet using the UUNET global backbone, where a recent £2 million UK investment has increased capacity with more regional points of presence linking more major conurbations via 8MB to 155MB dedicated lines. A ten-fold increase in trans-atlantic capacity means that UUNET provides faster and more reliable connections to the most popular parts of the web in the USA. There has also been a five-fold increase into continental Europe where Internet usage is now soaring. More network expansion and enhancement is going on line this year, further raising the value of reselling a UUNET provisioned service.

Other key elements of UUDial VIP are:

• A range of Internet network services including multiple email addresses, 15 MB of personal web-space and news which are all specially branded and customised for the client
• Customer support including telephone and email helpdesks.
• A branded support web site with customer and support services including multiple mail accounts, email alias setting and support tools
• End user billing via UUNET and branded with client details
• ISDN and V.90 for even faster dial up access